Proof copies of my sketchbook!

These will be available for online purchase tomorrow at www.superiortattoo.com

New Business Card

My new business card design.

9-11-01: A day I will always remember.

It's strange to think that it has been 10 years already since the attacks of 9-11. Ten years since every American's life changed, and America changed. Now it seems that the whole world is different, and the promise of a new millennium, of a fantastic future is tainted with terror, paranoia and violence. The first decade of the the 21st century is a decade of war and upheaval.

Ten years ago, just a couple days after the attacks, some friends of mine and I got the idea to paint a flag in a public place. We felt we had to do something, in a way I don't think we had ever felt before.

Down the road from where I was living at the time was a 7-11 that was run by some Indians (Dot, not Feather) and we asked them if we could paint our flag on their building, and they let us. I don't know what they thought of it, but they let us, and that was enough.

So on Sept 13, 2001, This is what my friends and I did. We ended up doing two different flags, and also repainted the7-11 flag three times, more on that as we get into the pictures. 

The First shot of a blank wall.

The First of us to join in. From L to R: Dawn Crider, Davin Yant, Kenny Puckett, Mark Young, Tammy Forrester, and Myself.

As we got into it, more people started to join us; (LtR) Adam Marsh, Me, Dawn Crider, Tammy Forrester and Mark Young.

As the day went on, people would honk as they drove by, and a Channel 3 TV crew stopped by and started filming us as we finished the piece. The Owner of the Four Kings Bar also stopped and asked if we could do this again at his bar. Later we also found out that they played a clip of that Channel 3 bit on the big screen for the World Series that year, when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees. Of course, we did. it almost felt like we started something. We were a small part of the response.

We felt that we had done something that day, and it started some kind of healing I think.

 The Flag at the Four Kings started a bit differently. It was more organized and involved alot more people, and it took almost twice as long to paint. I figure that makes sense, this time we were at a bar, and this was more of a social event in addition to the painting.

We had kids helping and tons people visiting and watching. it was amazing to see how a small idea turned into something so important. At least to us it did.

We wore the clothes of our painting for those few days, proud of what we had done, going through some kind of collective mourning process, sometimes sad or angry, as well as impressed with how people came together, and thankful for it. Such a strange time that was. I can imagine it was like when Kennedy was shot, or the Bombing of Pearl Harbor.

 The final group shot of the Four Kings Flag. A lot of good friends together in this pic, and one day we'll all get together again, and look back on days like 9-11, as the next generation loses touch with the event. When it becomes a point in history like D-Day or Pearl Harbor or The Kennedy assassination, the experience of the time held only by those who witnessed it, the true impact only understood by those who knew the world before that day changed everything.

Only a few days later, the 7-11 had the flag painted over.

We were pissed.

But we knew better than to do something violent, to lash out. There were already reports of hate crimes in the Valley and we weren't going to be part of that.

We were better than that.

So in the middle of the night we went back, just a few of us and put that flag back. We didn't ask. we just did it. Cars drove by and honked, cops drove by as we painted the flag graffiti style. What were they going to do? It was still less than a week after the attacks, who would dare stop us? we had the idea of going around the city and just tagging flags. We knew no one would stop us. we would probably get media attention for it. Alas, that was irrational, and we kept to our 7-11 wall. We actually did this twice, once again on the 1st anniversary of 9-11. 

The Four Kings flag didn't hold up well, and was painted over about four years later.

I wasn't there, in New York or Pennsylvania or the Pentagon. I was here in Phoenix, Az. I didn't know anyone on those planes or in those buildings. I didn't lose my life in the attack, or rescue anyone. I am nothing close to being a Hero or a Victim of 9-11. But as an American, it has affected me in incredible ways, as I imagine that it has affected all of us.  

Paintings - a selection of pieces

These are other paintings I've done over the past years. All are acrylic on canvas or canvas board. 

 Boom, one of my characters I created in Art School. one of the main characters in Sleight of Mind. This piece is 16x20.

DeepSpace – 2011 – Acrylic and spray paint on canvas – 10x16

FireMonkey – 2011 – Spray paint on canvas – 14x11

 Flood – 2005 – Acrylic on canvas – 20x16

 HalfSkull  - 2007 – Acrylic and watercolor on canvas board _ 14x11

Inferno – 2009 – Acrylic on canvas board - 20x16

DoomCrest

It seems I haven't posted many pics lately. the latest SOM episode excluded. So here is another Wallpaper. The DoomCrest I also used this image for the cover of my new sketchbook.

Resources for the history of American Comics

This post is merely a link to an article listing the many books through Americas Comic Book History. If you have more than a consumer, surface interest in comic books. Then this may be the book list you are looking for. Discovery what the industry was before the likes of Jim Lee and Frank Miller. 

An inside look at comic books - http://pulse.me/s/1t4dH

Fuck August, oh and Fractals are cool

Man... August sucked. Like, every day of the month.

We had 110'+ heat for 31 consecutive days here in Phoenix, for August, the hottest August in AZ history. Yeah, you do the math on that one Just the quiet backdrop for this part of the world, hardly newsworthy compared to everything else going down in the world; Hurricane Irene, the incredible Tornadoes across the midwest (Joplin, Tuscaloosa), Virginia/Eastern US Quake, Texas Wildfires, Lybian and Syrian Violence, Endless political bullshit, the stock markets of world falling like a base jumper.... I'm sure I have forgotten a few disasters in that laundry list of horror. but I make my point.

It's so small in light of the broader scope of things I've more appt cancellations than ever this month, my 7 month old Daughter has been sick for two weeks, my lovely wife nearly bled to death and spend 4 days over a week and a half in the hospital (not really getting into that further here). I lost a ton of work looking after baby while Dawn was in the hospital, not to mention the shitty side effects of said bad times: worry, stress, confusion, financial hardship, and total loss of sleep...  I feel like I am whining, here. not my style. But it's for a point, so bear with me.

I think there is a pattern here. And though this already sounds like some bullshit self centered Truman Show crap, claiming that my life and it's small problems correlate with the global catastrophe that is regularlly occurring. But I am not using some "coincidence = causality" bullshit here, neither do I think JUST my life is a mirror of larger events. but that ALL of our lives. individually and collectively, are patterns within the pattern that makes up the grand design of the fabric of reality.

What I am talking about are Fractal Patterns.

Fibonacci sequences and computer fractal patterns exhibit a really interesting phenomenon regarding how patterns can repeat and express the whole of pattern/equation in any and every part of the pattern itself. This a great visual representation of entaglement and interdepedecy theories, that make these concepts more tangible. These patterns have been shown, along with the Golden Ratio in Nature, Music, Physics, and are being broadened into many other systems to reveal patterns. Just watch the movie Pi. This isn't groundbreaking shit here, more like borrowed and reorganized ideas of other, far smarter people...

But my theory (and maybe it's not just mine) is that social, financial, and geopolitical patterns work the same way, and that the mircocosm mirrors the macrocosm. That the dischord we see in the big picture is a mirror of what we experience on a personal level. Like a digital mandala that reveals the patterns of the cosmos. To reveal that we really are connected, superconnected. That we are all one with everything, and that YOUR experience and expression, is the expression of the universe. We have only confused ourselves away from this realization, and have attempted to remove from ourselves the most intrinsic element of our being: that we are all in this together. So obvious, yet we ignore like the air we breath, we are only as good as the least of us.

I guess my point is that the problems we are facing right now are not unique to just ourselves, that we are all feeling this... zeitgeist. (look that up yourself) and that our isolation and hyper-individualism is the poison that is driving our nation and global civilization into turmoil, as it always has.

what will it take for all of us to see that we ARE our Brother's keeper, and that he is ours.